


Postconditions

by Harukami



Category: DRAMAtical Murder, DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel), DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: But how does one tag that, M/M, Sort of Noiz/Clear with shades of future Noiz/Aoba and Clear/Aoba
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:30:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3594717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I whined for like half an hour on <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/BrushDog/pseuds/BrushDog">BrushDog</a> that I wanted to write something small and smutty that required no setup and then I went and wrote this thing instead. Oops. </p><p>Set in the anime verse.  Noiz comes back to try to court an oblivious Aoba, but of course he made friends with the others, and wants to catch up with them too -- especially Clear, who he remembers patching up and wants to make sure is doing better. He quickly finds he's not the only one pursuing Aoba, but having a common interest only brings them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Postconditions

It's weird, he thinks later, that one of the first sensations he had was patching up someone he'd thought was human and wasn't. Running fingers over torn synthetic skin to hold down the edges and wrap bandages on it. He's used to bandages, though he's never known how tight they were, and at the time he felt hyperaware of how little he knew. Could Clear feel the pain when he tightened the bandages? He needed to hold the skin on, but how much was too much?

He couldn't ask. Clear's consciousness had shut down, and he was trying to repair what he could of the outside damage before doing what little work he could on fixing Clear's consciousness; if his body was this damaged, he probably couldn't support himself being awake in it anyway.

Maybe if he was unconscious he couldn't feel pain. Noiz couldn't be sure at the time.

It wasn't until a little later that he was able to ask about it, after the incident in Oval Tower, after Aoba had retreated with his grief and left the rest of them at a loss, about to disperse to their own homes.

"Thank you," Clear had said, "for helping me, Noiz-san." He'd put a hand to his chest, over where too many bandages were wrapped, hiding the tubing that filled his core. "I was so scared, but because of your help, I was able to lend my hand to Aoba-san again."

"Yeah," Noiz had said. Then, "does that hurt?"

"Oh, well, yes. Everything hurts right now."

Even though Clear wasn't human, everything hurt; but he was, in his own way, human enough. Noiz had put his hands in his pocket, feeling the broken bend of his finger, and shrugged. "See someone to take care of it," he'd said.

And now, coming back to Midorijima, even though it's to see Aoba, he finds himself thinking about it again. Has Clear gotten himself fixed, or is he still covered in bandages, constantly in pain? Well, with Oval Tower down but evacuated, there are surely people around who could, who would help. Still, he finds himself a little fixated on the thought.

He'll have time to find out, surely. His feelings for Aoba are probably, at this point, one-sided. They've become friends, he knows that much for sure. There's not much more he can say for it right now, though. He'd gone home to Germany, reunited with his family, cleaned up his act, all for this vague idea that someday perhaps Aoba would want to come back with him, that if he were a better person than he had been....

A little embarrassing, Noiz thinks. But becoming the best himself he can surely won't be for the worst. If Aoba doesn't want to come back, if Aoba will never fall in love with him in return, he'll just do what he can to strengthen who he is, and strengthen their friendship along with it.

***

Once he and Aoba have reestablished themselves as friends, once he's met the new Ren, once he's purchased a place to stay and all the rest, he _does_ follow up on the others.

"Ah, yeah," Aoba says, grinning at him across the shop counter. "Koujaku's fine, he's the same as always. You can probably find him down on Aoyagi street. Mink -- he's gone, I guess. I think he's probably gone back to the place he considers home. Clear's doing great, Granny knew someone who could get him fixed. You know how he said he walked around the trash processing area before? He actually lives up there! I helped him clean up his home. It's a bit of a mess, but he's happy there, I guess. We hang out sometimes."

"Great," Noiz says. "So while I'm in town, you'll hang out with me too?"

"Of course! What, you thought I wouldn't? Come on, Noiz. I always make time for my friends."

He follows up on all of it. Congratulates Ren while he's there with Aoba. Stops by Aoyagi street to harass Koujaku in front of his customers. Checks in on his old information networks to see if Mink really is gone.

Walks up to the North district, following the map that he'd had Aoba draw him.

It's definitely a dump. He walks among the piles of garbage, nose wrinkled, until he finds the simple shack that Aoba had laughingly described. It doesn't look like anything he'd consider a home, but whatever. It isn't like Clear is human. 

It isn't like he's trash either, though. Who had made him think to live in a trash heap?

He knocks, and the door is flung open with a cheery, "Aoba-san? Comiiing--" 

Clear's face is not unmarked -- rather, the skin on it is patchy over all the places Noiz remembers having bandaged. A transplant of some kind, probably from other robots of the line, like the Alphas that Aoba had described when he'd first brought Clear back all broken up. Clear's bright smile turns to confusion, then a sort of delighted awe. "Noiz-san...! You're back in town? I'm so happy! You came to visit me? You look so different!"

"You're one to talk," Noiz says, and puts a hand on Clear's face, feeling for the edge of his skin.

Clear, in the process of pulling him inside, goes very still. The gesture, just an unthinkingly casual check, becomes strangely intimate. Since Clear had been pulling him, they're standing too close, almost pressed chest to chest, and Noiz's hand traces down the curve of Clear's right cheek.

"Noiz-san--"

"I thought about you a lot," Noiz says. "Like, how you were doing."

"Oh. I'm... I'm good," Clear says, and steps back, leading him inside.

Noiz follows.

***

They talk. Noiz wasn't expecting it, but they talk. It starts with Clear's words bubbling like a stream as he moves around the place. The kettle gets put on, and whistles in the background as Clear seems to juggle plates and pans and cups.

Noiz hasn't even said he's hungry.

It's Aoba that Clear talks about at first, though, how worried he'd been for so long and how he'd tried his best to cheer Aoba up while Ren was gone, and how happy he was when Ren came back, and how amazing, isn't it, that Ren could have a body now? But Ren was human from the start, after all, so he belonged in a human body, even if turned out to be Aoba's brother's body, isn't that strange, and --

"You're jealous," Noiz says.

Clear stops mid-motion, putting the tea cup in front of him, and for a moment he stays very still, his fingers lingering around the rim.

Then he looks up with a smile, waves his hands, and retreats toward the stove. "Sorry, I'm babbling," he says. "I'm not used to company here since Grandfather passed away! Only Aoba-san has visited me."

"You're changing the subject?"

"Ah, well," Clear says, and fidgets with the square pan he's putting on the stove top to pour eggs into. He's turned away now so Noiz can't see his face, just the patches of mismatched skin at the nape of his neck. "I wouldn't say I'm jealous. I'm happy for Ren-san! I like Ren-san and I want him to be happy."

"Hn," Noiz says. "Well, our bodies can be a trap. If he's got a better one, good for him."

"...Yes, our bodies can be a trap. But we're no good to anyone without one, so it's best to work with what we have!"

"What are you making?"

"Oh, tamagoyaki! Do you like it? I'm sorry, I should have asked."

Noiz shrugs. "I haven't had it."

"Ehh, never?!"

"Lots of things I haven't had. I lived off pizza and pasta for a long time."

Clear wags a finger behind himself without looking. "That's bad, Noiz-san. You're young now, but you'll feel gross and sluggish when you're older if you eat like that. I'll make lots of food so you can try lots!"

"I'm fine. Anyway, I ate differently when I headed home."

"Where is 'home'?"

Noiz considers how to answer, sighs, and shrugs off his suit jacket. He puts his arms on the table and flops down over them, cradling his cheek against the hard line of one of them. "I don't know where home is," he says. "I went back to my family in Germany."

"Family's good," Clear says. "They must have missed you."

"My family isn't good," Noiz says.

Clear is silent for a moment again. Whatever he's doing on the stove sizzles. "I'm sorry. I understand."

"My little brother's okay."

"Ah, we're the opposite, then."

"Your parents were good?"

"My grandfather."

"You mentioned him." The smell of food is reaching Noiz's nose now. He closes his eyes.

"Yes, he's gone to rest forever now," Clear says. "This was his home."

"Sorry. But he lived in the junkyard? Really?"

"He could have lived in better places if he weren't living with me, but we made this place a good one to live."

Noiz says, "I guess that's what I want. A way to make a place a good one to live."

It's (in Noiz's vague awareness of delivery times) too fast to make sense, but Clear has been flinging food and pans around all over the place; Noiz hears the clink of plates being put down. "Yes, me too. I'd like it to be with Aoba-san, but I wonder if he'll notice that."

It's so matter-of-fact that Noiz can't even feel hurt or nervous. He laughs, lifts his head from his arms, opens his eyes. There are little dishes full of food all over the table. "Me too. I'd like it to be with Aoba."

"Really? Haha..." Clear sinks into the seat across from him. "Both of us, huh."

"Guess so."

"Eat up, Noiz-san! I made lots." Clear claps his hands together. "Shall we both cheer the other on?"

"Sure. Fight hard."

"Let's do our best," Clear says, smiling.

Noiz doesn't say _may the best man win_ , because he feels like if he does, he'll be the one to lose.

***

He visits Clear often. He's lonely, and Clear's lonely, so why not? They go out to eat sometimes, or go for walks, or just sit in Clear's kitchen. And they talk out their plans.

Once, it's: 

"If you want to marry him so badly, just ask him, Noiz-san!"

"I can't," Noiz mutters into his hands. "I don't think -- I mean, we're close, I like him, but we should have a relationship before I do something like that."

"So ask him out properly first."

"He'll say no."

"You're right, he will..." because it's not like Clear doesn't know how Aoba is, how it'd seem to come from nowhere for someone as oblivious as Aoba.

And another time, it's:

"I made him the cutest bento, but he said it looked weird!"

"Cutest how?"

"Everything was made to look like his face~♥" And Noiz doesn't know how someone can make the sound of a heartmark, like he's some kind of walking emote, but Clear's managed.

"That's weird," Noiz agrees, laughing. "Just make him a _normal_ cute bento."

"But there isn't anything cuter than his face?"

And Noiz thinks it should be weird, but it's good too, so maybe weirdness doesn't matter. They've survived more weirdnesses than this. Both of them have been weird since they were made.

***

Christmas is a mess. A good mess, but a mess. Aoba's Christmas party had gone well, and Noiz had done his best to help make it good. And it was fitting, somehow, that they were all back together again for a day like this. Even Mink had come back to town and somehow showed up for the party; Noiz didn't ask how or why. Maybe Mink had been thinking the same thing.

"I'll walk you back," Noiz says to Clear as they leave Aoba's house. "You're gonna get accosted wearing a skirt like that."

"I would accost them back. But please do walk with me."

Clear's like that, Noiz thinks; it was Clear's most blatant plan yet, showing up in a miniskirt, because -- he'd explained to Noiz earnestly -- the ads say that all men love miniskirts. He'd brought enough for everyone, too, in that even-minded way of his, though of course nobody took him up on that. Aoba had acted horrified at the very thought.

"You know," Noiz says as they walk back toward the North district, "I asked Aoba out for Christmas."

"He turned you down? Ehh, I'm sure it's just because he was planning this party--"

"No," Noiz says. "He didn't even notice."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

Clear laughs, tilting his head back. His breath puffs in the air and Noiz watches it with a weird feeling in his chest. Even Clear's breath is as warm as a human being's. Noiz remembers, when he first came out here, he'd only been able to tell it was cold because of the gust of his own breath becoming visible. In the house, the temperature had remained constant. He'd read enough to recognize what the sight of his breath meant, but he couldn't feel it at all. Clear feels it, he thinks. Though he, too, is able to finally, because Aoba gave him the gift of a real human experience.

But maybe Clear can laugh like this because Aoba gave him that same gift. He'd thought that, when he'd patched Clear up. You can't sacrifice your life if it isn't a sacrifice.

"You're laughing at me," Noiz says instead of any of that.

"No, no," Clear says, and tilts his head, smiles at him, offers his hand. 

Noiz takes it.

They walk hand-in-hand back. About halfway along, snow starts to fall. It's not the fat flakes Noiz was used to seeing out the window back in Germany but the small and awkward wet flakes that he got used to when he'd first moved to Midorijima. They're burningly cold where they hit his warm cheeks and melt away.

"You know," Noiz says. "If one of us finally does get through to him, the other's going to be pretty lonely."

"Eh? Really?"

"Obviously."

"Mm, I don't think it has to be one of us? Why can't we both love him? Why can't he love both of us? Or all of us?"

Noiz swallows a weird lump sitting in his throat, but that just moves it to his chest, makes that already-weird feeling weirder. He thinks about all his plans to take Aoba back to Germany, thinks about Clear's home that he wants to build up. Thinks about Koujaku's eyes lowered to some lady's hair on Aoyagi street, Ren's awkward smiles in the home he shares with Aoba, Mink lured back here for Christmas from wherever he went.

"You think that's possible? He hasn't noticed any one of us."

"I think anything's possible," Clear says, looking up at the dark ash sky spitting those small flakes. To Noiz's eyes it's just all gray up there, but he wonders what Clear sees. "I really believe that now. Aoba-san woke me up when I thought there was nothing possible any more, so I don't want to think that way any more."

They wind their way through piles of junk to the tin shack and Clear's hand starts to slide from Noiz's, turning away as he reaches for the door. 

"Hey," Noiz says. "Can I come in? I'm cold."

"Ah--"

Clear turns back, and Noiz kisses him.

It's the first time he's kissed anyone without his piercings in, and the first time he's kissed anyone with a full range of sensation. Before, kissing had mostly been a sense of pressure that he'd known other people liked, if he could figure out the right amount to press, where to put his lips. Now, his mouth tingles, feeling over-sensitive; like a burning heat spreading between them, catching that feeling in his chest and shooting sensation all over his body, to itching fingertips, the tightness of his nipples in the cold, an ache in his belly, lower. 

Clear hesitates, then kisses back, wraps his arms around Noiz, pulls him close, and that feeling almost explodes.

They stumble inside, Clear somehow getting the door shut, and kiss in the doorway. Noiz tangles his fingers in Clear's hair, wonders if it's too tight, if it hurts, gets a little whimper from Clear's throat he doesn't _think_ is pain. Is this Clear's first time kissing at all? he wonders. Is Clear capable of feeling this weird spreading sensation, does Clear want--

"Oh," Clear breathes, and kisses him again. Then: "Are you sure? But--" 

"I don't need to be sure. Nothing's sure."

"Nothing's sure," Clear agrees, and touches Noiz's face, traces where Noiz knows pale scars still show under his lip. "But--"

"You don't want to?"

"I don't want to be alone either."

"Indirect."

"Come upstairs with me, Noiz-san."

"You don't have to call me '-san'."

"Ehh, but I do."

And maybe there's some things Clear can't push past in his programming, or, at least, can't push past _yet_ , Noiz thinks with a clinical part of his mind. Noiz is the same way, even if it came from a different source. But anything's possible.

"Fine. Call me that until you don't want to any more."

They go upstairs, pushing hands into each other's clothes, and at first Noiz almost cries at how good it feels to feel someone else's touch, to want it and to receive it. There was a time that even masturbation was nearly physical torture. But just Clear's hand on his side burns with how deeply he feels it. Noiz knows what he's doing, but hasn't ever had it feel this much; Clear, obviously, doesn't know what he's doing, but is in touch with meaning, wants it to feel good _because_ of feelings, wants to try more. Noiz feels like he's holding something fragile, like Clear is offering him something that he puts meaning onto that Noiz has never felt meaning for before, and he wants to treat that right.

They kiss for what feels like hours on Clear's bed, touch and touch, only partially undressed, until Noiz can't bear the overload of sensation any more and he comes when Clear strokes fingers up his cock, comes with a gasp into Clear's mouth, spills across Clear's mottled hand and wrist.

"Sorry," he mutters.

"No, that's what we're doing-?" Clear seems almost confused.

And Noiz laughs and kisses Clear's mouth, the neck he remembers bandaging, the chest he remembers bandaging, moves down to wrap his arms around Clear's waist and hold on as he sucks Clear's cock into his mouth. His heart is still pounding in a fast post-orgasmic flicker in his throat, enough that he wonders if Clear can feel that, and he takes it slow, gasps for air in between mouthing at him, sucking at him, swallowing around him, closes his eyes and just feels the texture of Clear's cock in his mouth, listens to those whimpers and gasps above him, holds tight to that warm waist, those warm legs shifting under him.

When Clear comes, Noiz swallows. He's tasted come lots of times, and it's never tasted like this, pale and watery and inhuman, but whatever. Clear is sobbing for breath, Clear is tense, Clear's hands are pulling at his hair in rough tugs that almost hurt, mostly just feel good.

After, he pulls himself up, is suddenly uncertain as he looks at Clear's wide and hazy pink eyes, then stops caring when Clear pulls him down again, this time into an embrace, holds him. There's no heartbeat to listen to, no post-orgasmic fast flickering pulse here.

"Noiz-san..."

Noiz rolls over so he can breathe, but stays close, rests his head on Clear's shoulder. He notices Clear's room for the first time properly, the glass bottles everywhere, the glass baubles strung up and hanging from the ceiling. Pale light filters in from the window past the fall of snow, catching the glass, sending a faint glitter throughout the room. It's like Clear's brought the stars inside, he thinks, then snorts at himself, acting dopey after sex.

"Noiz-san, was that -- I mean, I haven't--"

"I like you."

"Oh," Clear says. "I like you too."

"Yeah."

Clear pulls the blankets up, and Noiz thinks they should really undress properly, not just lie there under the covers with their clothes askew, and he knows that his belt will dig in after a while, but for now he's comfortable and doesn't want to disrupt this warmth between them.

"I guess it'll work out," Noiz says. 

"Are you happy, Noiz-san?"

"Right now. Yeah."

"Me too."

"Want to keep being happy?" Noiz asks.

Clear laughs, soft, the sound humming through his body like that song of his. "Of course."

"Then let's do our best."

"Yes. Let's do our best, Noiz-san."


End file.
